Deathnote
by everyone'ssister
Summary: Tag for 13.05, Advanced Thanatology. Dean and Sam have been on a long road, which makes for a long story.


DEATHNOTE

"You asshole!" Sam finally blurts out, shattering the silence in the impala.

"What are you callin' me an asshole for?" Dean shoots back defensively, though his eyes are laughing at Sam's finally losing his self control. The older brother was fully aware of Sam's brooding on the seat beside him for the last hour and a half and had purposefully not broken the silence to see how long it would take him.

"You know what for, you dick." Sam grumbles, "Do you have any idea how terrified I was?"

And yes, Dean does. He's silent knowing exactly what he'd put his brother though, what he'd chosen to put Sam through. That crippling fear, crushing loneliness...flooding guilt that you couldn't stop it...and the grief. God, grief that no one can explain, like a blackness covering everything inside and out, a weight that you will never be free from only learn to live with.

"You always get like this!" Sam says, looking to where his hands are clenched together in his lap.

Sam supposes he should have seen it coming. After all when Dean lost purpose he couldn't just keep keeping on. The man required a reason and a cause...he was driven, that's just who Dean is. He'd almost lost Dean when he'd given up and was about to say yes to Michael, and with the mark he'd almost allowed Death to do lord knows what to him and so many other times when Dean was down and he was more than willing to make the absolute sacrifice.

"Look." Sam says softly, after a few calming breaths. "I get it if you don't believe, I even understand. You can sleep with as many strippers and drink as much liquor as you possibly can, I will even help you do it but Dean..."

Sam rubs his mouth with his hand, looks off into the dark night through his window. "...anything but _that_."

The silence is now charged. Both brothers tense with the other's tension. "No, I don't know everything about what you're going through." Sam starts softly. "And no, mom and Cas weren't as close to me as they were to you...but Dean...You, only you are that close to me. That way you feel about mom and Cas, the way you're missing them? Multiply that by about a million and then you'll have what I feel when I think I've lost you."

Dean is quiet beside him and Sam takes that as a good sign. "After everything we've been through, after everything you've sacrificed for me to be here, and everything I've been through to keep you here...your life isn't yours to just throw away!"

Sam's hand clenches in the leg of his jeans and Dean's heart breaks a little realizing how he had hurt his brother, how his selfish need to give up had hurt Sam. He'd selfishly wanted to end it all, he'd forgotten in that important moment of the most vital thing which he _hadn't_ lost.

Sammy.

God, what kind of life, what kind of death had Dean almost condemned Sam too by ending his own hastily and thoughtlessly? Who cared if he wasn't important, or didn't change the world or make it a better place, the only thing that mattered was if he was those things to Sam. He had purpose as long as Sam needed to keep going. And even when Dean was in his worst place, dragging Sam down all the time...still then Sam needed him. Sam wanted him. Sam would die for him.

He shivers at the very thought. Sam was everything, Sam was goodness and light...Sam had a vision for the future and a hope for them, Sam was everything Dean couldn't be, and he forgot that for Sam he meant the same thing. It was hard for Dean to realize he meant that much to anyone but here was his baby brother begging him with tears in his eyes to realize it, to believe it.

"And Billy is there waiting for us Dean, she wants us to stay dead which made it even more risky." Sam's voice is weak with dread of what could have happened. "If she hadn't decided that you needed to live on, she would have taken you from me forever...what if I never saw you again Dean? What if she threw you out into void space somewhere, when I died I wouldn't even be able to find you..." Sam takes a deep breath and his wet eyes glisten in the dark.

"You know all this, but you still did what you did...do you know how much that hurt?" Sam's eyes go distant and haunted and Dean knows what he's feeling...those seconds of complete and helpless terror as your brother falls to the ground and after several last gasping breaths eyes go empty and cold and that chest that should always be vibrating with warm heartbeats goes still and quiet.

"I'm sorry." Dean says softly, eyes on the road, mind almost numb with the weight of what Sam's just said to him, the emotions, the anger, the love, and the sweet sweet relief. "It was wrong and selfish, and if you can go on living and believing you should and if you need me here for that then I am going to be here...so I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise, Sammy."

Sam seems to melt into the seat beside him with relief. "Thank you." He whispers. "And Dean," He swallows and looks over at his brother, "You're not done...you're not dead inside. I have complete faith you will fight your way back just like you said, so don't give up, because I'm not giving up on you."

Dean clears his throat and looks to the side outside his window to try and hide how much those words mean to him, how far they boost him...because if Sam knew he was actually helping then his 'being nice' and hovering would be a trillion times worse.

Dean can see those shelves and shelves of notebooks on which were written the many ways he could die. He's got a feeling though all of them were hella long. He and Sam had been on the road to ruin for a long time. They would die. He would die. But what way was deserving of him, of a Winchester? Sam deserved to die honorably at a ripe old age or as a warrior, he deserved to choose. Just like he knows Cas made his choice, like his mom made her choice.

He had a choice to make too. Fight to survive or turn belly up and surrender. And that wasn't Winchester, that was one thing he and his brother weren't. They didn't give up, they didn't give in to the soul deep tiredness and die to gain eternal rest...they lived and fought on so they could help people, help the world.

So they could be true to themselves.

Because without their purpose, without their cause...they were nothing but big dumb Winchesters just like Billy said. And he's going to be thankful for that, if it takes him the rest of his life to get back to that point; he will believe in he and Sam again.

It's a deep dark hole inside his soul...god he wants to believe. He wants to fill it up with the hope and faith of the duration of his and Sam's life's spent together. But the doubt is deep and dark too, he can't get past losing Cas and Mary, can't get past losing them for a reason that wasn't near important enough.

 _He can't fight for and believe in 'good' again with that same blind faith; the price this time would inevitably be Sam._

Because Sam was all he had left, after Sam is gone there really is no hope. There's no building back belief of purpose...that's the end of the line for Dean. And shit, that terrifies him. That thought paralyzes him. The idea alone of having to go on without Sam is complete torture. Brings tears to his eyes, makes him feel sick...rips agony straight through his heart.

"Sammy." He says lowly.

Sam looks to him in surprise, thinking that this hard conversation was probably over, Dean hated to talk. Just one more thing Sam hated about his difficult brother, but made him love him all the more. Dean hated to burden anyone with his own problems. "Yeah?" He asks.

"Thank you...for everything." _Everything you've done, everything you do._

Dean has that fear always of losing Sam. It's embedded in him, it's part of his heart and soul...it is the only prevalent fear. But really deep down he _knows_ , not believes, that he and Sam will be together until the bitter end. They've been fighting this good fight together for so long, headed straight for hell, destruction and death for years now...and they still weren't there, they still hadn't run out of time.

So while he may not believe in anything he does know there's no way in hell his death would be written down in a book without Sam's name there too. And he sure as hell knows not even all those notebooks in Billy's library could hold the long, terribly beautiful story that will be Dean and Sam Winchester's deathnote.

...the end.

Thank for reading guys! REVIEW?!

Hey guys, I know I've been gone, so sorry. I've been super busy and honestly the fight that Sam and Dean had at the end of 13.03 totally killed my muse. It was horrible but...I'm coming back slowly but surely. Please have patience with me. I love you guys :):););)


End file.
